Blink … and you could miss Soap Street

You could easily miss Soap Street.

Soap Street, 2026

It is one those narrow thoroughfares off Thomas Street which loops round to come out on High Street and should have a dark past full of stories as befits a chapter in a novel from Dickens where poverty and hopelessness vie with sinister tales of the underworld.

It should but I don’t think it does, in fact it’s a bit of a cheat, given that the stretch that runs into High Street wasn’t even called Soap Street but until recently was just Back Thomas Street.

Added to which for most of its length it runs past the back of buildings whose only claim is the low quality of the graffiti that adorns the walls.  That said the mural of the woman and the cat is worth a glance.

And there is that wonderful curry hose that is This and That, which is unpretentious and in its own words is a “Longstanding family run Indian dining room serving a classic menu of Indian curries”.*

I fell across it by accident a few years ago and was not disappointed, and judging by the number of customers yesterday I wasn’t alone in thinking so.

Soap Street, circa 1900

But back to Soap Street, which was cut sometime after 1819 when Greenwood’s map of Manchester shows it as an open space.  

Thirty years later it seems to be home to some  anonymous unremarkable buildings which didn’t even warrant a mention in a street directory until the late 19th century when four businesses are listed at number 1 Soap Street in 1895, which falls to two listings eight years later.

That said in 1911 one of the businesses was “Marsden, Harcombe and Co bed and bedding manufacturer”.  

Now for any one with an interest in our iconic buildings that name will instantly bring forth  the comment “ah that magnificent green tiled entrance at 56 Marshall Street”.

Marsden, Harcombe & Co, Marshall Street, 2015

It dates from 1934, was the home of the Greater Manchester Archive and was a place I visited regularly.  

It was still there in the May of 2025 when I passed it, but the area is ripe for redevelopment so as they say watch this space.

And by extension I wonder the fate of the surviving old buildings on Soap Street which along with This and That is home to the restaurant Trop, The Kebab Lab and out on Shudehill the Lower Turks Head.

Well, we shall see

Location; Soap Street, and Marshall Street

Pictures; Soap Street, 2026,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Soap Street, 1900, from Goad’s Fire Insurance maps, courtesy of Digital Archive Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Marsden Harcombe & Company, Marshall Street, 2015, courtesy of  Phil Portus

Soap Street, 2026

*This & That Indian Cafe, Manchester, https://www.thisandthatcafe.co.uk/menu

The picture of Annie Magee on Hawthorn Lane and that young Chorlton bandsman

Now if there is a simple lesson about old photographs it’s that you should never take them at face value.

So here is a picture from Peter McLoughlin's collection of family pictures which shows his mother Annie in 1925.

I was drawn to it the first time I saw it and it began the first of series of stories that feature those family albums.

But what I missed or more accurately ignored was the young man standing beside her.

I don’t know who he was or why he posed with young Annie and just assumed he was a young serviceman, but looking again at that uniform it seems far more elaborate and I think it is that of a bandsman and if pushed I think it might well be from our own Brass Band.

And that makes it rather special because there are very few pictures of our brass band which was at the centre of life in Chorlton from the mid 1820s till 1945.

Of course the Stalybridge Band is older and can claim to have marched in to St Peter’s Fields on the day of Peterloo but ours had an almost continuous run until it agreed to wind up after the last world war.

It performed in many of the great and not so great events here in the township and went on to win prizes in brass band competitions.

There are a few accounts of its founding in the 1820s and some more of when it reformed in 1850.

I know the names of some of the men who made up the early bands, along with the prizes they collected during the late 19th century and continue to come across newspaper reports of their activities.

The band neatly reflects the history of the township, starting as a small band whose members made some of their instruments including the drum which once made proved to big to get out of the cottage.

The early band was almost exclusively drawn from Methodists and most made their living from the land.

By the 1890s few of the members still worked the land, most worked in Manchester and most were either newcomers to the township or were first generation.

But so far I guess there are just half a dozen images of the band, some as they marched through Chorlton and one of them at Barlow Hall in 1893 but sadly that’s the lot.

All of which makes this picture of our young bandsmen so interesting and perhaps in time I will discover more about him.



Picture; Annie Magee and that unknown young man, 1925 from the collection of Peter McLoughlin and the Brass Band circa 1920 courtesy of Allan Brown

The story of a strike and of strikes yet to come, part two .... a Chorlton postcard

On Newton street in July 1911

The Carters came out on strike in Manchester at the beginning of July 1911. 

It was the picture of police escorting a strike breaker which first caught my interest.

But they were not the first or the last during the next few years to withdraw their labour to advance a demand for better pay and conditions.

Early in 1912 the miners had come out following a ballot “in favour of giving notice to establish the principle of a minimum wage for every man and boy working underground,”* and at the beginning of March Manchester Municipal workers voted to follow those of Stalybridge, Salford and Stockport and strike for higher pay.

You can get a sense of the mounting conflict from the newspapers of the period. The Manchester Guardian was quick to comment on the concerns over coal stocks in the Greater Manchester area just weeks after the miners had come out, and carried reports that in Nottingham the bakers and painters were about to go on strike while in Manchester there was serious disruption to the rail network.

Leonard's fears

And here in Chorlton on the day the Guardian reported that 60% of trains from one Manchester railway station had been “knocked off” Leonard wrote to a friend of his worries about his mother’s illness and that “all our staff intend to come out on strike this weekend.”

Now it may never be possible to discover the business that he ran or what happened on Friday March 15th when the strike was due to start, but I shall endeavour to try.

He was “busy making arrangements to fill their places” and thought that “this Coal crisis ..... is a terrible affair.” 

All of which rather eclipsed his pleasure that at the Parliamentary bye-election earlier in the year “our man got in (Good old Blue) turned a liberal majority from over 2,000 to a conservative one of 500, great excitement.”

It is a fascinating glimpse on how people here in Chorlton looked out on the mounting political and industrial unrest and sadly represents the only comment we have so far.

As it was the strikes rumbled on through the year, but more about them tomorrow.

Picture; detail of a postcard sent on March 12th 1912 from the Lloyd collection, detail from the Carter's strike, courtesy of the Greater Manchester Police Museum

*Balllot paper issued by the Miner’s Federation of Great Britain, January 1912

The Tale at Eltham …….

Now I really wish I knew just what the “Tale at Eltham" was, but alas it is lost.

Nor I suspect did anyone know just what had gone on in Eltham in the October of 1917 when this picture postcard was sent to Miss Goddard of Sussex.

I can tell you that it was sent at 2.30 in the afternoon, but can’t make out from where it was posted.

Nor can I really be sure that the sender or Miss Goddard had any connection with Eltham, which leave me wondering if it had been the two “young things” that caught the attention of Eliza who sent it.

But then these picture postcards were standard fare, with the company merely over printing different destinations to attract local audiences.

Some where in the collection I have another with a different place name.

The message on the back is difficult to read but hints a at a boat trip and an admonishment that Miss Goddard hadn’t written recently.

So that is it, a little bit of 1917 which might or might not have a connection with Eltham.

Location; Suffolk and maybe Eltham

Picture; The Tale at Eltham, 1917, from the collection of David Harrop

The woman in a shawl at the foot of Oliver Cromwell in the summer of 1914

It’s the last of my Judge postcards. 

Like the others in the series which Fred Judge took in the summer of 1914 it has much going for it not least because it isn’t the standard view.

Instead we have the statue of Oliver Cromwell matched by the Cathedral behind and balanced by the building to our extreme right.

But for me it is also the figures he has captured sitting on the steps.

There is the mixed group of boys including one in school uniform and beside him what might be a paper seller and the others, two of whom are engaged in a game.

And there is the woman in the shawl not at all interested in the camera deep in thought or perhaps listening to the chap next to her.

She is interesting because you rarely see women in shawls in post cards of the period.

They were there in the city and were often the subject of pictures taken on the poorer streets.

She makes a fitting contrast to the more elegant woman with their fine hats and expensive looking clothes off in the distance.

I wish I knew more about her, or for that matter the group standing by the tram, which is heading up to Market Street.

I can’t be sure but I rather think it is a Sunday sometime in the summer, partly because this is from the same series of pictures Fred Judge took around Manchester and may well be the next after the one on Cross Street.

In his photograph of Albert Square from Cross Street the time is just before three in the afternoon and here beside Oliver Cromwell the Cathedral clock is just coming up to a quarter to four.

Which was just enough time for him to stroll down and set up here.
The crowd by and large are oblivious to his presence and just get on with the day, some no doubt heading on to Bell Vue which is the final destination of our tram.


Picture; from the collection of V & G Harris

In celebration of Chorlton People ….. at our Library ... in August

I am enjoying the library’s current series of exhibitions under the broad title of “Works of Art By Local People”.

And starting in August their latest exhibition show cases the work of Peter Topping who is an artist, author, poet and now song writer. *

 

All of which he combines in this presentation which has the lot.

Now, I could paraphrase the content, but where would the fun be in doing that when you can go along and see it all for yourself?

So, I will just share some of the display panels which will be the enticement to go down to the library and view the full exhibition which also highlights his workshops on how he writes his songs which are designed to be a collective experience.

Leaving me to add a mangled version of that well known song, If you go down to the library today, You're sure of a big surprise. **.

And because I am in the mood and can I will finish with that panel celebrating my literary and artistic partnership with Mr. Topping.

It began around 2012 and in that decade and half has brought forth sixteen books, umpteen exhibitions, three street installations including the popular History Walk murals as well as talks and walks.

All of which is a lead into that wonderful film Casablanca, made in 1942 and set in Vichy controlled north Africa, full of sinister Nazi officers, Free French resistance fighters, a lost love affair and some memorable catchphrases.

Of which one of my favourites is uttered by Rick Blaine to the corrupt but slightly endearing Police chief Captain Louise Renault.  It comes at the end of the film, when the nasty Nazi officer is shot dead, and the resistance leader, Victor Laszlo, leaves Casablanca with his wife Isla Lund who was also Rick’s long-lost love.  With nothing left Captain Renault and Rick face an uncertain future and resolve to head to a “Free French Garrison over at Brazzaville”, leaving Rick to say "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".

And that has pretty much characterised that Simpson Topping partnership.

*From Poems to Musical Poems, Peter Topping, Chorlton Library, through August 2026

** Teddy Bears' Picnic,  melody written in 1907 by American composer John Walter Bratton, and lyrics added in 1932 by Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy

***Casablanca, 1942

And if you want a station ….. we’ve got one to spare ….. Manchester Victoria Railway Station

 Now that’s a bit unfair because Manchester Victoria remains a busy and vital part of our rail network.

But during the 1960s it did seem eclipsed by some of the other Manchester and Salford railway stations.

Across the city London Road got a makeover at the beginning of that decade along with a new name and with its fast InterCity express trains seemed to stand for all that was new and exciting about the 1960s.

Not to be outdone Oxford Road got that new frontage which with its sweeping bold timber design looked equally an embodiment of a new age.

Leaving Central and Exchange to roll over, give up the ghost and depart the scene.

And by what seemed a cruel joke both became car parks.

Nor did Victoria escape the retreat from the great days of the railways.  In the 1970s it must be said it was becoming a tad shabby, despite its stunning exterior and equally wonderful interior.

We used it get trains home to Ashton-Under-Lyne some evenings and Victoria was the jumping off place for journeys back to Newcastle.

But there was this sense that it was in decline.  

The much-vaunted Picc Vic Tunnel connecting Victoria and Piccadilly had been shelved, many of the services had been diverted to other stations and only a handful of platforms remained with a chunk of the station sold off for the construction of the Manchester Arena.

All a sad end to what had once been a thriving and important railway hub which in 1909 boasted 17 platforms and that grand exterior.

To which in 1929 was added an extension linking it to Exchange Railway Station.

Back in the 1970s I hardy noticed the poignant war memorials including that discreet sign to the number of wounded men who returned as hospital patients during the Great War.  

And only gave a glance to the magnificent booking hall, the mosaic lettering above the First-Class Café, or that elegant glass and ironwork at the front of the railway station.  To which can be added the tall tiled map of the destinations which the old Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company served back at the beginning of the 20^th century.

And today I doubt few using the tram interchange to make journeys out to Bury and Rochdale will ever know of those dreary decades or that some of the railway station is built over part of the cemetery at Walker’s Croft which is believed to contain the remains of 40,000 people, many of whom were paupers.  

Or that later the site of the old workhouse on New Bridge Street was also engulfed by another period of Victoria’s expansion.

It remains one of those rarely talked about stories that the development of many of our railway stations resulted in the clearance of some of our worst inner-city slums.  So, while part of Little Ireland vanished under the Oxford Road railway viaducts, Victoria did for properties in Irk Town which was notorious as an area of poor housing and sanitation.

If I was at all fanciful, I might imagine their collective ghosts wandering the platforms, but if such spirits are a foot they will have to share the space with the heave of passengers who today use Victoria, whether it be using Timmy tram or like me out by train to Walkden.

Leaving me to reflect that it was a jolly good job Victoria didn’t go the way of Central and Exchange.

Location; Manchester Victoria

Pictures; Manchester Victoria, 2025-26, from the collection of Andrew Simpson